The Office of Faculty Development (OFD), Faculty Technology Center and Extended University Programs will be hosting the 2nd annual Teaching with Technology Symposium on Feb. 25th. Last year was the first event and it was very successful. Our keynote speaker was Kevin Abbott, from Media Services, who is also a game designer. He talked about using gaming principles in the classroom. He and I also co-facilitated a Game Your Classroom Institute last June. What fun that was!!!!
This year's event theme is "Teaching in the Cloud" - using cloud programs and apps to support effective teaching and learning.
In my EDT5410 class this semester, we've been exploring a number of cloud computing programs and discussing ways they can be used in the classroom; social bookmarking using Diigo or another program, RSS readers, and wikis for collaboration.
What are some other cloud computing resources that could be used in a learning environment?
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
More reasonable
It is really hard to be reasonable sometimes. I want to do so much but there is only one of me and 24 hours in a day, and right now that's not enough time for me to get everything accomplished.
So what's a girl to do?
Prioritize! (Ugh, I hate prioritizing) I just want to do what I want to do when I want to do it! :-)
Well, being reasonable means that I need to consider what needs to be done and when, and then fit in what I want to do.
Time management is really difficult these days when there is so much information at the touch of our fingertips and my tendency to not allow enough time to get things done.
So what time management tricks do you use to stay on top of your world? Is there a special app you use? Program? Good old fashioned lists, pen and paper?
So what's a girl to do?
Prioritize! (Ugh, I hate prioritizing) I just want to do what I want to do when I want to do it! :-)
Well, being reasonable means that I need to consider what needs to be done and when, and then fit in what I want to do.
Time management is really difficult these days when there is so much information at the touch of our fingertips and my tendency to not allow enough time to get things done.
So what time management tricks do you use to stay on top of your world? Is there a special app you use? Program? Good old fashioned lists, pen and paper?
Sunday, October 12, 2014
I'm a little crazy but....
I love to learn and even after earning a doctorate I continue to want to learn new things.
Last year I got into Game Design for education. We have a game designer on campus, Kevin Abbott, who designed Broncoland. I helped facilitate a Game Your Classroom Institute last summer. A week long intensive during which we learned about what makes a good game, which content is appropriate for a game environment and then we built a couple of games. The fun part about the institute was that each day, Kevin brought in a different game. We played the game and then talked about the elements of the game. It was incredibly interesting. Unfortunately, we only have 4 instructors participate. But we will offer it again this summer and hope to have more interest.
Two years ago, I became interested in gaming for education as a result of creating an online resource course for supporting our part-time instructors. There's really good content in there but we have not been successful in driving traffic to the course over the past two years. So I kept thinking that maybe if we made it more fun, more like a game, that maybe it would catch on. So I took a Game Design MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) through Coursera and taught by a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. It was interesting but I failed to complete the course because I was too busy.
So to repeat my same mistake (ha ha!) I signed up for another MOOC through EdX called Introduction to Game Design. It starts on Oct 22, so I have a week to get it into my schedule, FIRMLY into my schedule, meditate on my reason and purpose for taking this course, talk to Kevin about the course, and make posts here in this blog on what is happening in the course. That might, just might, give me a fighting chance of completing the course.
Want to help keep me accountable to my commitment? Ask me how it's going!
Last year I got into Game Design for education. We have a game designer on campus, Kevin Abbott, who designed Broncoland. I helped facilitate a Game Your Classroom Institute last summer. A week long intensive during which we learned about what makes a good game, which content is appropriate for a game environment and then we built a couple of games. The fun part about the institute was that each day, Kevin brought in a different game. We played the game and then talked about the elements of the game. It was incredibly interesting. Unfortunately, we only have 4 instructors participate. But we will offer it again this summer and hope to have more interest.
Two years ago, I became interested in gaming for education as a result of creating an online resource course for supporting our part-time instructors. There's really good content in there but we have not been successful in driving traffic to the course over the past two years. So I kept thinking that maybe if we made it more fun, more like a game, that maybe it would catch on. So I took a Game Design MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) through Coursera and taught by a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. It was interesting but I failed to complete the course because I was too busy.So to repeat my same mistake (ha ha!) I signed up for another MOOC through EdX called Introduction to Game Design. It starts on Oct 22, so I have a week to get it into my schedule, FIRMLY into my schedule, meditate on my reason and purpose for taking this course, talk to Kevin about the course, and make posts here in this blog on what is happening in the course. That might, just might, give me a fighting chance of completing the course.Want to help keep me accountable to my commitment? Ask me how it's going!
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Blogging Habits
I have started....and dropped... many a blog in the past 10 years.
I thought I would blog my dissertation process but never did. I thought I'd blog on some books I was reading....but never did. Oh, I make a grand start, posting a couple of posts. Only to be swept away by the 'busyness' of life; job, family, creative projects.
And here again, even as I ask my students to blog every week, I have fallen behind.
So how do you develop a blogging habit?
The 3 R’s of Habit
Change Every habit you have — good or bad — follows the same 3–step pattern:
What kind of motivation will this take? That will be the subject of one of my posts (-:
What steps do I need to take each day to keep my commitment?
I thought I would blog my dissertation process but never did. I thought I'd blog on some books I was reading....but never did. Oh, I make a grand start, posting a couple of posts. Only to be swept away by the 'busyness' of life; job, family, creative projects.
And here again, even as I ask my students to blog every week, I have fallen behind.
So how do you develop a blogging habit?
The 3 R’s of Habit
Change Every habit you have — good or bad — follows the same 3–step pattern:
- Reminder (the trigger that initiates the behavior)
- Routine (the behavior itself; the action you take)
- Reward (the benefit you gain from doing the behavior) James Clear
What kind of motivation will this take? That will be the subject of one of my posts (-:
What steps do I need to take each day to keep my commitment?
- putting it on my daily to-do list
- find a good time of day to write a post (what works best for you? early morning, morning, Noon, afternoon, evening, late at night?) I'll play with this to see which time is best for me.
- brainstorm on a list of ideas to blog about
- set aside time (put an appointment on my calendar) each day to blog
- Lastly, and this seems obvious, but is so powerful....JUST DO IT! Don't sweat the details, don't worry about perfection, just write and post and write and post and write and post!
Ok, so today, Oct. 11, 2014 I commit to blogging every day for the next 21 days. Right here on this blog.
Wish me luck!
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
2nd week of the semester
I always love the second week of the semester because this is when my students start letting me know that stuff isn't working in my course! There is a mad dash the weeks leading up to the start of the semester to get everything in the LMS. It's really easy to miss some things until you actually get in to start facilitating and the students start working through the activities.
I'm teaching two courses this semester. One of them I completely revised, so it's really becoming 'my' course. The other one I'm using another professor's structure,so I really don't feel it's 'mine'. I've taken over so many courses in my life that I've become fairly adept at stepping into someone else's course at the last minute. But I really love tweaking it, revising it, to make it mine.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Intro to Educational/Instructional Technology
Welcome to Fall 2014
I'm teaching Intro to educational technology this semester and the first blog reflection is suppose to be about how I view technology in teaching & learning. Since I first went out on the Internet in 1995 I was hooked. I switched from business to education in order to learn how to create online learning, as I realized the huge potential the Web had for providing access to education for non-traditional students, of which I have always been.
In particular for adult learners who needed to pursue higher education in order to achieve their career goals and/or open new opportunities.
The one question I always come back to when I'm designing courses, whether online or on campus, is "Is this the best technology, program, delivery method, etc. for this content, these students and in this environment". It really helps to cut through the hype that surrounds new technologies to get to the heart of the matter......will this technology be the best for what I'm trying to accomplish.
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